In general, this document describes systems and techniques for viewing, editing and/or otherwise manipulating electronic images such as digital or digitized photographs.
Digital photography has simplified taking, viewing, and printing photographs. Photographs can be taken either using high-end equipment such as digital single lens reflex (SLR) cameras, low resolution cameras including point-and-shoot cameras and cellular telephone instruments with suitable capabilities. Photographs can be transferred either individually as files or collectively as folders containing multiple files from the cameras to other media including computers, printers, and storage devices.
Image manipulation and management software applications, such as iPhoto (manufactured by Apple Inc. of Cupertino, Calif.), can be used to arrange, display, and edit digital photographs obtained from a camera or any other electronic image in a digital format. Such software applications provide a user in possession of a large repository of photographs with the capabilities to organize, view, and edit the photos.
Typically, such software applications provide a Graphical User Interface (GUI) with which users can view and manipulate their photos. Depending on context and setting, a user's photos can be displayed either at or near full size or as image “thumbnails”—versions of the photos that are reduced significantly in sized to allow many of them to appear together in the GUI.